Your MySpace Page Might Show Your Real Face to the Taxman!

People are relaxed while surfing social networks. They just go on entering unlimited personal information on their profiles. They forget the important fact - such profiles are usually open to the public. They can attract the attention of taxman who is free to use public records in his efforts to recover tax dues.

If IRS wants to know more about you (and your income), it will usually start from your bank account, your employment record, your tax records and your records from the department of motor vehicles. Such public records provide vital information on you. However, all of these sources relate to olden times. IRS can get only limited information.

The hunger of IRS is much more. It targets the social networking sites these days. Almost everyone has an account on at least one such site. You may post inadvertently much more detailed information about you, your business, your income, your assets and your future plans on such sites. Such sites are helpful to find out your present location also. And powerful search engines like Google will follow the links from such social sites. By entering your name on Google search, the taxman can easily find the list of all such sites you are registered with. Then it is just a job of few minutes to find out all your unknown details.

You should remember very important point here - IRS staff can only access information which is available as public records. Many sites do not allow public to view the profiles of their members. So they cannot go beyond this limit. After all, an IRS auditor cannot become your friend to find out more on you! However sites like MySpace do allow everyone to view all the profiles by default. Most of the people go with the default while registering their name, so their profiles are open for everyone. Such sites are like goldmine for IRS.

The bottom line is very clear - you are responsible for leaking your own information to outsiders. So if you are careless in posting everything about you on such sites, you cannot blame people for accessing such information.

You may not be 'open' to IRS with all your financial details and may get away with it for some time. However, IRS tax auditors are becoming smart these days. They can take out within minutes so-called secret details from sources open to public at large! How they do it? Know well before you sink deep due to your social profiles! Chintamani Abhyankar provides straightforward advice on your social networking habits.

Chintamani Abhyankar, is an expert in the field of finance and taxation for last 25 years. He has written many books explaining inside secrets of the magic world of finance. His famous eBook Stop donating your money to IRS which is now running in its second edition, provides intricate knowledge and tips on personal finance and income tax.